How is story mode?

So,due to the Persona announcements apparently some persona stuff is on sale sale this week. P4 Arena's Ultimate Edition with all the DLC is $25 so because Im also planning on buying Golden (which is also on sale) I was wondering a few things.

•Is the story mode actually meaty in this?

•From a scale 1-10 how hard is this to pick up? BlazBlue confused the shit out of me with all of its systems. This easier to get into?

•Going back to the story how crucial is it to have played P3 since I know there are P3 characters in the game.

1. From what I've played, the beginning part is pretty monotonous, but after a few hours it starts to get more interesting and it actually starts to tie the stories from Persona 3 and 4 together. I don't think anybody knows yet how much future games will require you to be familiar with the new Arena storyline, though.

2. From a mechanics standpoint, it's a bit more accessible than BlazBlue (fewer systems, simple autocombos, button-press reversals, etc), but it's still got some of the airdash/run craziness that all Arc Systems fighters do.

3. I don't think it's all that crucial, but my memory is fuzzy on it. EDIT: FluxWaveZ's better memory indicates that I am wrong on this so disregard!

The story mode is about 15-20 hours depending on how fast you read. The general story is fine, but the structure is a big problem with it. Because each character has their own story chapter, a lot of the different story modes will have segments that are extremely similar to each other and that absolutely contradict other characters' story chapters. It's worth seeing through, especially as the canon sequel to P4, but you might feel burned out a bit if you try to go through it all at once. Yu, Yukiko, Yosuke and Chie's story modes in particular are very, very similar to each other.

Uh, well if you were very much confused with BlazBlue, P4A won't be that much easier to get into because both games are very similar with almost the exact same systems (especially comparing Chronophantasma to P4A). The auto-combo system, the two-button DPs and the fact that all specials and supers are quarter circle motions might make it a bit easier for you, though.

P3, both The Journey and The Answer, is way more crucial to P4A's story than P4. In a lot of ways, P4A feels more like the P3 characters' story and the P4 cast is just along for the ride. Plus, a lot about P3's story such as the ending and certain events are straight up spoiled in P4A.

The story is just good fan service in general with having P3 and P4 casts be in the same game. The overall story is fine and continues where both P3 and P4 left off. It's required info if you deeply care about either persona game. It's not as good as the RPG games are but it's a neat story mode that is done well enough.

I haven't played a BlazBlue game yet I found P4A to be a challenging game to be great at but it isn't too difficult to be decent at it. The multiplayer is probably dead by now so the main reason to get this game is for the story.

The story mode is fairly long, but not all that interesting. It plays out more like a glorified arcade mode, each character has their own individual story but they mostly cover the same things with some different perspectives.

Arc games look more complicated at first glance than they really are. The game has a decent enough tutorial and challenge mode if you want to get into it a bit further. P4A is probably one of the easiest games to get into. If all you're interested in is the story though you can literally mash 1 button to get through everything.

I thought the P3 stuff was much more interesting since it's been a while since that story and the characters changed a bit.

I thought it was pretty terrible. It's pretty much just a visual novel where you occasionally fight for a minute or two once in a while. Unless you're REALLY into the Persona story, I can't really recommend it to anyone.

Based on my experience trying to get a friend into both of them, P4A is definitely easier to pick up than BlazBlue. It's still got hella systems, but the characters themselves are less abstruse, and they all share a lot of common commands, so it's easy to graze around and get a feel for everyone. P4A is designed to be more casually accessible, so grasping the basics ain't no big thang. My friend, who normally doesn't play fighting games at all, is quickly getting good at it just from fighting with me regularly. But when I tried to get him into BlazBlue, it was just too impenetrable for him to get anywhere.

Also, you should totes play Persona 3 if you haven't. I'm not going to say it's totally crucial to enjoy P4A, but it definitely enhances it. Persona 3 is just one of those games everyone should play anyway.

Worth noting, the AI in the story mode is real easy, and you get about 8 fights of 1 round, about 30 seconds a fight, per 2 hour story mode. Also, P4A has an auto combo system where you bash the A button to spit out a basic combo ending in a special move, that'll see you through the fights in the Story without too much trouble.

You've got your answers, but I'll just add that as someone that isn't a big fan of fighting games, the story was enough for me to feel good about buying the game. I even did play some arcade mode, and was able to grasp the systems enough to have a decent time with the game. I even played some local multiplayer with people of similar disposition towards fighting games and that was a fun (though brief) experience.

However, like @fluxwavez said, the contradictory nature of the individual stories is a bit disappointing, so much so that it isn't really clear what the actual events of the game are aside from some broad strokes that most stories share.

As others have said, the story is farily lengthy. I like visual novels, I like Persona, and I like fighting games so I loved the story mode. It starts out pretty boring until you unlock the second set of characters, but once you do it picks up. I also really liked Labrys' arc, I predicted fairly early on what was going to happen and was mostly right but thought it was well-told. Just know what you're getting into. Also all the fights in the story are fairly simple, I won a lot of them by just mashing [].

There are still a lot of systems and character-specific systems, but I thought it was way easier to get into. The commands are easier and more more straightforward (most of them are Fireball forward/back), but having the Persona cast helped. You can look at Yukiko and think "She's probably more of a ranged fighter who uses her Persona a lot", look at Kanji and think "He's probably the grappler or gets close to people and beats the shit out of them without letting off" or look at Yosuke and think "He's probably going to be more agile, maybe not as much sheer power as Kanji but still able to get in and mix it up" and you'd be right.

There's some pretty key moments in P3 spoiled and explained, Elizabeth's purpose in that game is to help expand on what happened at the end of 3. If you have no intention of playing it you should be fine but if you do avoid it until then.

-"Meaty" in a fighting game sense, sure. The exposition is heavy, but the pace swings from doing so are so heavy you may get tired. Also, as FluxwaveZ said, most of the P4 character story modes are nearly word for word the same.

-Easy to pick up if you're just in for the story, quarter circles and auto combos aplenty, and the AI is pretty simple. If you want to play this with other people and be competitive, it's much harder to get into; there's systems for systems in systems so knowing what you can do when is a little nuts

Its pretty long, but I wouldn't consider it meaty. It has a lot of content (specially by the standards of the genre), but a lot of it is redundant. Not that they fill in their gaps nicely, since each story has the selected character as the protagonist, so you can't be sure which one is the cannon. Luckily, you only need to complete 4 characters to get the whole story.

Story mode difficulty is a joke. As there is no incentive (not even achievements) for higher difficulties, it can be completed entirely on very easy. However, once you leave that comfort zone, it gets pretty hard, pretty fast. True to other Arc games, this one has a lot of complexity in place if you want to get good at it.

It sure helps. Story chapters are extensive enough that you get a good sense of who the characters are but, even considering the length of the story mode, there is little more than an introduction.

@fluxwavez: I just started playing the story of this game and was wondering how important The Answer is. I completed The Journey several months ago, and read that The Answer was not worth playing through because it was all combat. Should I play it before continuing, or watch the story on youtube? I ran into some P3 characters, and it does seem that a lot has changed since the end of P3. Thanks.

- I played through the first story parts of Yu and Chie, and they were very similar. Played only the first chapter of Mitsuru and it was much more interesting.

- I found the story AI kinda difficult on normal, and had to go down to easy.

@fluxwavez: I just started playing the story of this game and was wondering how important The Answer is. I completed The Journey several months ago, and read that The Answer was not worth playing through because it was all combat. Should I play it before continuing, or watch the story on youtube? I ran into some P3 characters, and it does seem that a lot has changed since the end of P3. Thanks.

- I played through the first story parts of Yu and Chie, and they were very similar. Played only the first chapter of Mitsuru and it was much more interesting.

- I found the story AI kinda difficult on normal, and had to go down to easy.

Elizabeth's story relies on the Answer quite heavily, and there is certainly some dialogue between the other P3 characters that references those events as well.